Cars - what is the point of having Rev counts on display?

Driving my mum's car at the moment & half the dashboard is taken up by a clock style revs counter... Why? I only need to know how fast I'm going & if there's petrol in the car?! Can anyone enlighten me - I think I've missed something.

 

Having a rev counter teaches you two things.
Firstly it is a more scientific way to see how many revs the engine is doing than listening to the pitch of the engine noise. You will learn at what figure the engine will be happy if you go up a gear and at what figure it would be happier in the gear below. As a result you tend to change up a gear earlier and down a gear later than you would going on engine pitch alone. As a result you drive far more economically.

Secondly you will learn at what rev range you get best acceleration and how high on the rev counter it runs out of puff. This is very helpful to ensure you get the right gear for maximum attack for overtaking manoevres, making them swifter and therefore safer.

None of it essential information, but IMO very helpful. I use my rev counter all the time.

 

Found it particularly useful when I was learning to drive as to when the optimum time to change gear was.

 

car?? -what happened to the bicycle ?? nt

 

Generally, if you keep below 3000 rpm in a petrol engine and around 2,500 - 2800m in a modern diesel in top gear you get decent fuel economy. Its easy in a five gear car to drive in fourth and not realise. The rev counter will tell you.

 

No point at all in mine. It's an automatic.

 

Most automatics allow you to kick down a gear to extend the revs and provide more power. Many have an 'economy' setting as well as a 'performance' setting and in some cases a 'poor weather' setting (although I'm not sure what the difference between poor weather and performance is, because both seem to depend on holding a low gear with high revs). The most usual way in which you can down shift in an automatic isto push your foot right down on the accelerator and and then feel your toe click down - that click down is the mechanism to tell the car to drop a gear and hence you get a surge in power. The other way is that in many cases yourautomatic gear lever may be able to click to the left or right and will offer you first, second, or third. The rev counter isuseful for those things.

 

It will be out on Saturday!

Early kick off & jammed station means that the bike will be on the A61 for the trip home from the match.

 

Well I've been educated but

It's in the wrong place (ie. it's in the place where on my car it's the MPH), so I keep looking at it on the Motorway thinking "I 'm doing more than 40!"
Also think it shouldn't be so big - I mean it takes up half the dashboard (VW Polo).

 

Wimmin need them.

It let's them know the optimum nuber of engine revs needed to burn the clutch out.
So, when they're parking up they can thrash the ****** off the car at just the right RPM to make smoke billow out the bell housing.
So to speak.

 

Quality. nt

 

I thought maybe they put them on cars for boy racers

To see how high they could get when they're revving up at the lights.

 

RE: I thought maybe they put them on cars for boy racers

Absolutely </p>

Yours sincerely,</p>

Revvin' P</p>

 

Very useful for the hard of hearing................................nt

*

 

So you know how many priests youve knocked over!! nt

 

if you have a sporty honda its so you know when the VTEC kicks in

 

Are you being serious?

(doh)

 

Too right I am!!

If they were essential they'd be PROMINENT on every car. They're not. Usually the rev count is part of the MPH dial ... but for some reason VW have dedicated half of the dashboard to the rev count. I have driven 20 years without using one - I know when/ how to change gear (I don't need a gadget to tell me - I can tell), I can park the car without a problem - are they really that essential - or is it like SAT nav?? Just a gadget for those who can't work it out for themselves?
NB I asked this question at work (60% fellas) and not one said they referred to their Rev count gizmo - ever.

 

My dad said to me once, its a good gauge if your engine needs tuning,

He said if the engine while idling, moves from the 1, engine needs tuning or whatever.
My uno had a economy gauge, that was pointless, it moved when you pressed the accelerator and warned you, you was using more petrol!!

 

RE: My dad said to me once, its a good gauge if your engine needs tuning,

it goes up in incriments of 1,000. so it's not 1rpm...that'd be slightly too slow!!

it can help in a number of ways, to be fair, especially good for inexperienced drivers.